This past Tuesday was my birthday, my first in my new homeland of the Northern California coast. I kept the day deliberately unscheduled. I woke up not knowing what I would do, but trusting that if I followed my emergent impulses, beauty would unfold. This is my practice these days—listening to the moment. Sometimes I’m better at it than others. Moving here, letting go of everything I had known, and shifting from leading my life from my mind to following intuition has been my greatest teacher.

Those of us who lean towards mysticism (you know who you are) are afflicted with a terrible longing—to know the face of the Divine, to see the Unseen, to feel that we are being supported by something larger than ourselves.

We are also terrified of it. And so when the Spirit comes, we turn the other way, and refuse its offerings, and convince ourselves that we’ve been kicked out of the garden.

The great work of trusting the Unseen is not about accessing some power we don’t already possess, it’s about learning how to recognize the signs that are already here, and saying yes to what comes.

What a week. The Colorado floods are proof that devastation, anxiety, great love, tenderness, grief, generosity, helplessness, and grounded service all live side by side. What we think of as solid (roads, buildings, structures) is not. What we think of as ephemeral (love, care for one another, generosity), is not.